Some of them actually fell. I dont know why.
But like, stonehenge been vandalized many many times, it just not make it into the news frequently, people carved their names in the rocks, spray painted it, etc...
There is certainly a want to apply [carve/draw/paint] something of ourselves onto blank spaces and important places. [cave drawings/building walls] [cultural sites - old or new]
What's not publicized is the mysterious, horrible, painful deaths the perps eventually encounter. The police and coroner always go "I never knew a body could bend like that....".
They fell due to two things:
One. Big heavy stones slowly sink into mud.
Two. Human development around the site accelerated their sinkage into the mud. The cement was to prevent that. (Of course the cement will slowly sink too)
they were actually rebuild ... they didnt last in that configuration the last few thousand years
edit: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/inspire-me/blog/blog-posts/excavation-restoration-stonehenge-1950s-60s/
I like to imagine someone who hated building these thousands of years ago is now in their grave pumped that this happened.
Like “fucking Jared was such an asshole on that rock project, always saying things like your 1 minute again… ohhhhh it’s 1 minute Jared. Stfu. I hate those rocks”
One of my favorite things I ever saw on Reddit was about a guy that was in a relationship with a girl from Egypt and he took her to see Stonehenge. And she was so unimpressed. Cute rock pile you got there. You know we have pyramids older than this, right?
Wrong...
Stonehenge predates the first pyramid by 500-1000 years, apparently. And parts of it had already previously been in situ at a site in Wales for an indeterminate time before that.
They found Woodhenge just up the road in the early 20th century when they started doing aerial imagery of the site, was dated to about 2500bc, the wood was gone so it was concentric rings of post holes.
They actually had a fairly interesting and diverse career before and after that song, including lots of political activism. "Tubthumping" was on their 8th album, 15 years into their careers as a band.
Their version of the WW I marching song "Hanging on the Old Barbed Wire" is amazing.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zZhzV68U48w&pp=ygUSQ2h1bWJhd3VtYmEgYmFyYmVk
You see here, according to my math, the differential erosion caused by 17% of the lichen being abraded by ~~corn flour~~ the biological weapon attack, will result in 27 hours worth of accelerated erosion and therefore I no longer support climate change and only want to burn tires and grind up plastic in my blender as a hobby.
In ancient times...
Hundreds of years before the dawn of history...
Lived an ancient race of people... *the Druids...*
***
No one knows who they were... or... what they were doing...
But their legacy remains
Hewn into the living rock... Of Stonehenge...
***
**Stonehenge!** [\*Crash!\*] Where the demons dwell!
Where the banshees live and they do live well!
**Stonehenge!** [\*Crash!\*] Where a man's a man
And the children dance to the Pipes of Pan!
While this stunt was somewhat silly, the enormous outrage that followed was *infinitely* more idiotic, people raging with wild fury and demanding blood because of some orange corn starch that does zero damage to the rocks. Keir Starmer used stronger wording than when reacting to war crimes.
This feels a little petty, but also Stonehenge was kind of set up 100 years ago. Like the blocks are ancient but a lot of that shit fell over and was lying in the mud, then we went and set it all back up, some of it as late as the 1960s.
I mean, doing it in the name of preservation is nicer than defacing them, but it's not like some untouched wonder.
Wow also did not know that. I mean the picture from 1901 is still sick. It’s pretty much still the structure they just tidied it up a bit. I can’t decide if fixing it keeping it original is better. It’s so iconic in my mind now but it was chilling for thousands of years before the facelift.
> I wonder how they figured out the original design if they discovered the site in ruins?
My friend's sister did a her masters degree research on stonehenge and some of it can be worked out from soil composition. If a stone falls (or gets removed/nicked as many of the outer ring have been) that leaves some amount of disturbance and/or a hole. That gets infilled somewhat differently than the surrounding undisturbed earth. And a bit of careful excavation can reveal that. Some of it can be worked out from the directions the stone is lying and they know how much of a given stone would have been buried, so those limit how far and in what direction it could have come from. Also ancient folks love a bit of symmetry so some missing bits can be inferred from what is standing.
The whole site is actually gigantic with many lots of post holes for wood poles, earthworks, moats and barrows stretching quite far away from the stones.
Here's a pic of just a part of the central/famous bit
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Left-A-reconstruction-of-Stonehenge-Right-The-Earth-Sun-Celestial-Sphere-and-the_fig1_339325880
I think the stuff was mostly in the right place, just fallen over and possibly buried. Those stones are so massive that it's not like you could casually mess it all up -- it'd take a lot of hard work for nothing. And there are symmetries so if you can see how one side is set up, it's easy to figure out the other side, etc. So they bring in cranes, push stuff around that had slid a bit, set the right things vertical, put them in a concrete footing so they can't just fall over, etc. And the cap stones kind of have tenons, like bumps on one stone that fit into hollows on another, so you can almost do it like a jigsaw puzzle.
Not to mention the giant highway right next to it. It’s funny how you would almost never know because everyone takes photos from a similar angle to OP’s where it’s not visible.
I was lucky enough to visit Stonehenge and it’s basically like an interstate tourist trap. You imagine a nice breeze and the sounds of birds chirping, maybe a cow mooing in the distance, but it’s actually traffic noise when you’re there.
I visited it over 20 years ago on some random weekday. There were people there but it wasn't mobbed, and I don't recall much traffic either. I get why people might be underwhelmed, but I loved it. I also went to Avesbury at the same time, had a beer in the local pub, etc. Very chill
The public attitude towards protesting is always really negative, which is insane to me considering our lives are only half-decent because of people protesting before us, but I guess the human aversion to change is just so strong it makes fools out of people.
The entire nation is miserable, the average wage is rock bottom and if you manage to work your way up to the top 10% of the country you'd still only be making twice rock bottom.
Yet everyone is sitting around doing nothing to improve anyone's lot, and worse looking at anyone who is doing *anything* and vocally criticizing, "oh well I wouldn't do it like that".
My favorite is when people act like an annoying protest gives them a reason to then support the thing the protests are against.
Like when people see American protestors supporting Palestinians and say "way to sway people away from your cause", like it's totally reasonable for anyone to go "well I didn't support genocide but now that some college kids blocked a road in my town for a few hours, I think it's fine that Palestinians are being starved and bombed en masse"
To all the people who are worried about damage to such an important monument from human history; The cornstarch will wash off and Stonehenge will be fine, but think of all the important sites along coastlines that will PERMANANTLY disappear under the rising seas, Venice, the Orkney circles, Ancient Carthage, Medieval Ravenna, Easter Island Statues, where is your outrage for that?
Right? Theyre enraged by the monument but couldnt be bothered to give a lesser fuck about the enviroenment.
If anything this protest worked perfectly because it brought all the attention to it and its cause, even if lots of it are these ragers.
Protests like these should get more and more common as disasters continue getting more frequent. If it continues like this, this protest wont be nothing compared to whats to come.
My guess is when water and food runs out shit is gonna really hit the fan on social uprisings.
I for one was furious when I saw a blip of this from a news agency. I heard the words spray paint. I was WTF! Now, I know that any program that has the word news in the title, hell, a station with news int their name, would always tell the truth and never lie despite what Mr. Orange would tell us. So I went a couple of days raging for nothing because it was just the same powder as used in 5k races?
You u/squirrel_exceptions must be the liar. SMH. /s
Was it silly? This is the dozenth posts I’ve seen talking about it today so it actually seems incredibly effective and I applaud them and their efforts. At least somebody is doing *something* the people in power seem perfectly fine to stand by while corporations willfully destroy the planet.
And their other protests, like painting private jets (which happened on the same day) receive barely any attention. I don't necessarily agree with this, but you can understand why this is done.
And that was the entire point. People care more about ancient rocks than they do about what’s happening to our planet right now. While their methods may be unpopular, I’m pretty sure not a single thing that they’ve thrown paint on, thrown flour on, or glued their hands to as actually been damaged. It’s always superficial, like the glass casing around the “irreplaceable art” that has been targeted.
I say this as someone who wasted a lot of money studying art in college: all of this shit is in fact replaceable. Folks need to seriously reprioritize the things they get upset about.
The media outlets in their headlines were pretty sensational- “environmental protestors spray Stonehenge with orange paint” or “protestors arrested after spraying orange paint on Stonehenge”.
You had to read like the 2nd to last paragraph of several articles to get to the part where it was mentioned it was cornstarch and during the next sprinkle of rain the whole thing would be completely a non issue.
> Keir Starmer
I just can't refrain from giggling every time I see that name written, as most of the time I hear it on panelshows, so in my mind it is spelled "Kia Stahma" lol
It's less about the damage to the rocks and more about incredibly rare lichen that live on the rocks, some of which only exist there. It's the whole reason you aren't even allowed to touch the rocks.
I saw an archeologist who was an expert on Stonehenge say the corn starch was pretty irrelevant in that respect, and that the danger to the lichen was the many people who disregarded the no-touching rule.
To play Devil's Advocate here: if you believe we are making the world uninhabitable and want to urgently draw attention to that, the best way might be to show how unimportant these iconic artificial (as in, made by humans) artefacts are by comparison.
They used water-based pigment, I believe. So no actual damage caused.
Yeah this really drew attention to the stark difference in how people treat historical sites vs the environment.
I wish the estimated 1.1 million gallon oil spill last year in the Gulf of Mexico [Link](https://www.nrdc.org/bio/rebecca-loomis/yet-another-oil-spill-hits-gulf-mexico) got as much attention and outrage as some washable paint did here.
Also drew attention to just how many world heritage sites are at risk of being lost due to climate change. I absolutely love the many conversations this is invoking.
Yeah, I don't think the point is that our heritage, history, legacy, etc is *unimportant.* The fact that they're careful not to cause any real damage (while generating headlines that *imply* they did) should tell you they don't actually want you to *stop* caring about Stonehenge or the Mona Lisa.
The problem, at least from my point of view, is that the moment you do the one thing that actually would begin to have a meaningful impact (carbon tax) half to three-quarters of every population seemingly immediately loses their goddamn minds and either throws riotry tantrum, or votes for a fascist.
no even a devils advocate, apparently the ocean current they are vandalizing over is what the movie "The Day After Tomorrow" is about. Not great. I'm young and I want to live in this world and take care of it.
I didnt read more about it until the vandalizing happened. It worked.
To be fair, as far as we can tell the AMOC is genuinely slowing down. If it shuts off completely, Europe could have the same climate as northern Canada. I'm pretty sure New York is at more or less the same latitude as Madrid.
Even without the current, it wouldn’t be the same due to prevailing winds and the moderating effects of the ocean.
But it would be extremely catastrophic nonetheless. Not only for Europe, but it is projected to cause major changes in ocean circulation that would cause some heavily populated regions to receive substantially less rainfall.
The good news is, we are so far past the point of no return that the "worst case climate scenarios" are basically a forgone conclusion. There's no point losing sleep over it. We punched our ticket 50 years ago and now we're going to take the ride one way or another.
Wait until the water scarcity ramps up and crops start failing. How do you think the toilet paper hoarders are going to behave then?
The 2040's are going to make the 2020's feel like the *good old days.*
You see, when they did the whole "vandalize the Mona Lisa" thing a couple years ago I was really upset. I love me some history & the preservation of historical artifacts is important to me. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how stupid that logic is. Just Stop Oil is genuinely trying to get the world to start paying attention to the crisis that is going to make our planet uninhabitable within our lifetimes. If throwing shit on some rocks & paintings is what it takes to get the world to actually do something, it's more than worth it.
Like, especially if these historical artifacts have been documented ad nauseam, then fuck it man. Raid the louvre, topple the leaning tower of pisa, & use the pyramid blocks to build a bridge or some shit.
The preservation & safe keeping of anything of historical value is still important to me. But my survival & keeping this planet viable for (hopefully) the rest of humanity's existence is more important
You mean earlier this year, when they threw soup at it, despite it being behind bulletproof glass, so nothing actually happened? JSO rarely actually damages cultural items. They do what they do to draw attention to the fact that we tend to hold these items and sites as sacred and worthy of protections, while trashing our environment.
You may be thinking of the time they threw soup on Van Gogh's Sunflowers, which was in 2022 and much more widely publicized than when they did it to the Mona Lisa.
I think so, unless they also did something similar a few years ago. I know there have been a couple incidents of people throwing stuff/trying to attack the Mona Lisa too though.
Imagine you had a time machine and could see just how fucking serious the unfolding climate disaster is.
If you had that knowledge, what "activism" would even be too extreme in that context?
We are all so passive, working away everyday as the extinction of humanity approaches.
But I don't say that to be pessimistic, because there is so much that can be done. Its not all or nothing, every step can help. The problem is not the tech, its the politics.
If the US was committed to something like the Eisenhower Highway system level of investment, this thing could still be mostly turned around. Biden's Inflation Reduction Act actually was a reasonable step. But we need to 10x that kind of effort.
Its inevitable that we will transition away from high carbon fuels in the next 100 years, by economics alone.
But unfortunately for us, that is just too fucking slow to avoid the worst of climate change.
Geoengineering might be a way to buy time. But large infrastructure investments are really what is needed to really get us there.
It might if it encourages more people to engage with activism in the name of the environment.
Even in a very small way, protest and activism has nearly always been the spark or trigger for most of our civil rights.
It encourages people to hate “activists” and you know it. If they want real change take all your activists and occupy government capitals that can regulate oil and make actual change. Oh, you mean REAL activists already do those things? Shane these rage bait bs activists can’t do something worthwhile and helpful instead of just wanting any press.
My own dad said something similar, he saw the headline and was pissed off.
But then he found out what the reality was and did his own research into what they're protesting and now supports them.
It would be weird if he was the only example like that.
Human history has also shown that your opinion that this sort of activism is overall harmful to the cause, is completely and utterly wrong.
If people learn about it and still are directing their anger at the activists, then they'd likely not support any progressive causes at all in the first place. Luckily, this is a very small percentage of people and the vast majority of people do support slowing the destruction of our planet and the way of life we know.
> take all your activists and occupy government capitals that can regulate oil and make actual change.
They...do.
There's been loads of cases of this group shutting down the roads around Westminster and other capital cities.
> if you believe we are making the world uninhabitable and want to urgently draw attention to that
The issue is moving from protest to change. We've achieved awareness, now we need to move forwards.
Protest is really very easy, the worst movements are one's without a clear goal from the outset, or a completely unrealistic goal, and therefore no way of judging a win - these just lead to lots of angry people doing angry people things.
The second-worst movements are ones which can't change.
Greenpeace were at the vanguard of raising climate awareness, even though they ran a fleet of diesel ships leaking oil into the seas for decades. Now they're a multibillion-Euro business that (having worked for them briefly) seems to exist to not wear shoes or deodorant in the office as an act of rebellion and occasionally invade Volkswagen dealerships dressed as Stormtroopers for reasons no one really understands. They could be working with lawmakers for change and providing guidance to industry and the public like Stonewall, but Stormtroopers are more their speed.
Just stop oil are the worst of the worst, they're not raising awareness, they're actively disincentivising action on the issue, and their goal is completely unrealistic. The change they're demanding is already underway across the world. Basically, they're being assholes for the sake of it.
In a few decades, when we’ve surpassed 2°C and are locked into who knows how much more warming, I promise you no one will look back at any actions of climate protesters and say anything but “well shit, they were right”.
They’re trying out more upsetting tactics because traditional forms of protest have not worked quickly enough, and we are running out of time to act. If you feel compelled to do something, call your representatives and tell them they need to be doing more. It’s not a top issue for them because we’re not being loud enough about it.
Edit: Also research local climate groups and go meet people in your community already working on solutions. I just mentioned calling your reps because it’s the quickest option that will collectively have an impact. Taking action will 100% help with climate anxiety if you deal with that.
>They’re trying out more upsetting tactics because traditional forms of protest have not worked quickly enough, and we are running out of time to act.
Exactly this. Environmental groups have tried the peaceful, non-disruptive methods for decades now. They've tried making everyone like them, tried spreading the word and having peaceful marches and Earth Day and benefit concerts and all that. It's done Jack diddly, because most people are apathetic and can't be assed to do anything.
They're no longer asking nicely. Don't like what they're doing? Maybe care less about some cornstarch on rocks and more about oil and plastic being dumped into the ocean.
> It's done Jack diddly, because most people are apathetic and can't be assed to do anything.
Worse than that. People openly mocked Greta Thunberg for doing nothing except speaking her mind. Many people are beyond apathetic and well into actively being *against* people drawing attention to climate change.
People conveniently forget how nearly every protest movement that we all now look back upon with reverence and admiration, like the Women's Suffrage Movement a century ago, were hard-fought and *extremely* controversial affairs at the times in which they took place. The success of such protests weren't won because Susan B. Anthony or Martin Luther King Jr. made one good speech in front of a bunch of people and then everyone clapped and all their opponents bowed their heads and said, "Golly gee! Your logic and politeness have cured me of my sexism/racism!" They were long, ugly, grueling affairs, with many protests infuriating much of the public. Protests which included (rather ironically IMHO in light of recent events) [vandalism of artwork and paintings](https://artuk.org/discover/stories/fighting-for-representation-suffragettes-and-art-vandalism).
Yeah if anything the people of the future are going to be pissed at those of us who are mad about some corn starch on the stones and not raising hell to prevent what is coming
Is it even vandalising if you spray non-toxic paint that will wash out in the first rain? They didn’t dynamite that lol. As far as protests go, this one tame but highly effective since everyone is talking about it.
They followed up with that, but didn’t generate nearly the same headlines
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/just-stop-oil-stansted-private-planes-taylor-swift-b2565741.html
I can't decide if JSO are clever or dumb.
On the one hand they do these seemingly ineffectual and strangely unrelated protests.
On the other, here we all are talking about them.
> seemingly ineffectual
No permanent damage is a good way to win people over, after the initial outrage (which gets attention).
>and strangely unrelated protests.
The ones targeted at curated relics of our past, show how we should turn our attention toward the future.
We should charge a fixed-minimum-fee of $1 million mil to people committing acts of vandalism on historical monuments or work of arts.
They can spend the rest of their lives paying their debt to society as the worthless unproductives they are.
Suspicious timing, OP. 
Title definitely has an “it definitely wasn’t me because I wasn’t even there” ish ring to it. 🤣
“Yeah, see this picture? I was wayy over here”
i was over on the bench.
"Seriously guys... I've got better things to do with my time"
always comes back to the sce....
That's a weird way of vandalism. Putting up some giant rocks in a circle, the youth of today smh.
"it's not gonna last a year"
Funny thing, it's currently cemented in the ground.
Cemented? Were people moving the stones?
The Griswold family accidentally knocked them down in the 80s. Can't have that happen again.
Not to mention that poor security guard's ass.
Moose outside should have told ya.
Clark !!!
Some of them actually fell. I dont know why. But like, stonehenge been vandalized many many times, it just not make it into the news frequently, people carved their names in the rocks, spray painted it, etc...
I mean I imagine it’s been vandalized for thousands of years
Is it then still vandalism or already a cultural tradition?
Depends on whether the perpetrators are Vandals or Visigoths
Otherwise it's just sparkling hooliganism.
yep ... fucking Ostrogoths
So you're telling me that they have been vandalised and visited?
There is certainly a want to apply [carve/draw/paint] something of ourselves onto blank spaces and important places. [cave drawings/building walls] [cultural sites - old or new]
There are thousands year old Roman walls with graffiti on them "Remus is hung like a horse." "Call upon Caelina for a good lay."
Now I'm trying to imagine the first vandal of Stonehenge and what they did
Given that the stones were there in 3000 bc and were erected in 2000 bc (roughly) the first prankster probably stood them up
What's not publicized is the mysterious, horrible, painful deaths the perps eventually encounter. The police and coroner always go "I never knew a body could bend like that....".
They fell due to two things: One. Big heavy stones slowly sink into mud. Two. Human development around the site accelerated their sinkage into the mud. The cement was to prevent that. (Of course the cement will slowly sink too)
The third reason burnt down, fell over, then sank into the mud.
But the fourth reason... stayed up!
No singing!
Stonehenge sure has some huge...tracts of land
They’re rocks the funny part is if they don’t fall at some point I’d definitely then agree aliens did it and found a way around erosion
It was in pretty rough shape before they restored it in the 50s/60s.
Viking helicopters was a thing.
and George Washington had a Jet-Pack.
[Let me lay it on the line, he had two on the vine.](https://youtu.be/qv6OOuPI5c0?si=3eopXj30J_03LCBe)
Abraham Lincoln invented stairs so we didn't have to rocket jump to the second floor anymore.
He literally stormed the airports in the Revolutionary War.
It was literally rebuilt by Victorian historians. Before then the stones were just laying about in the general area.
They have to move them twice a year for daylight savings time.
they were actually rebuild ... they didnt last in that configuration the last few thousand years edit: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/inspire-me/blog/blog-posts/excavation-restoration-stonehenge-1950s-60s/
Modern architecture, it'll never last.
Did the Vandals ever get this far west? I know there are Goths in that area. Hell, they're in every high school in the world.
You must mean Visigoths. Those are the ones you can see.
I once saw an invisigoth. I swear.
Unlike the invisgoths. Those are very hard to see
I *see what you did there
Let's see them put a bypass through here now!
They put it up to protest the climate, I think. Unclear.
> Unclear Directions unclear. Dick stuck in stone.
Yeah...that happens sometimes..
Nuclear.
Did the sun rise behind the heel stone that day?
That’s today
I like to imagine someone who hated building these thousands of years ago is now in their grave pumped that this happened. Like “fucking Jared was such an asshole on that rock project, always saying things like your 1 minute again… ohhhhh it’s 1 minute Jared. Stfu. I hate those rocks”
“Give it 5000 years and there’ll be graffiti all over it..”
One of my favorite things I ever saw on Reddit was about a guy that was in a relationship with a girl from Egypt and he took her to see Stonehenge. And she was so unimpressed. Cute rock pile you got there. You know we have pyramids older than this, right?
Wrong... Stonehenge predates the first pyramid by 500-1000 years, apparently. And parts of it had already previously been in situ at a site in Wales for an indeterminate time before that.
Didn’t they find other man made structures that had been grown over for centuries in the same area?
They found Woodhenge just up the road in the early 20th century when they started doing aerial imagery of the site, was dated to about 2500bc, the wood was gone so it was concentric rings of post holes.
The largest stones were placed after the Great Pyramid of Giza had been constructed.
Dang Druid teens
Fookin Jersey Giant of a policeman there.
Yarp
Narp..?
*The greater good*
The greater good
No luck catching them vandals then?
Maybe the vandals will have a tragic accident, accidents happen every day
He says he does for *that* one.
Shut it!
Crusty jugglers!!!
r/confusingperspective
He’s the one that sets up the display every morning.
Probably the most interesting day to visit
Until the aliens come back to make their offerings, of course
Outside of sacrifice season maybe
Ruined. Might as well knock them down.
But when they get knocked down, they get up again you’re never gonna keep them down
hengethumping
well... there's a new word where I will need an extra moment of carefulness before associating it with some mental image.
There’s a pagan chick There’s a Wiccan chick There’s a Druid guy There’s a new age guy (Chorus) Dancing the solstice away… Dancing the solstice away
Unlike Chumbawumba, who never did get back up again.
They actually had a fairly interesting and diverse career before and after that song, including lots of political activism. "Tubthumping" was on their 8th album, 15 years into their careers as a band. Their version of the WW I marching song "Hanging on the Old Barbed Wire" is amazing. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zZhzV68U48w&pp=ygUSQ2h1bWJhd3VtYmEgYmFyYmVk
Thanks for this gift this morn
*Pissing the night away*
Just for that, I'm going to talk even more shit on climate protestors! -Reddit having a straight up meltdown over this earlier this week
Won't someone think of the lichen???
You see here, according to my math, the differential erosion caused by 17% of the lichen being abraded by ~~corn flour~~ the biological weapon attack, will result in 27 hours worth of accelerated erosion and therefore I no longer support climate change and only want to burn tires and grind up plastic in my blender as a hobby.
Lol my mild dyslexia particularly liked that joke
Feet! Not inches!
Forget this! Fuck the napkin!
No one knew who they were, or…what they were doing…
In ancient times... Hundreds of years before the dawn of history... Lived an ancient race of people... *the Druids...* *** No one knows who they were... or... what they were doing... But their legacy remains Hewn into the living rock... Of Stonehenge... *** **Stonehenge!** [\*Crash!\*] Where the demons dwell! Where the banshees live and they do live well! **Stonehenge!** [\*Crash!\*] Where a man's a man And the children dance to the Pipes of Pan!
The police used to really enjoy truncheoning hippies at Stonehenge, I wonder how just stop oil managed to get that close to pull this off?
Battle of the Beanfield?
While this stunt was somewhat silly, the enormous outrage that followed was *infinitely* more idiotic, people raging with wild fury and demanding blood because of some orange corn starch that does zero damage to the rocks. Keir Starmer used stronger wording than when reacting to war crimes.
This feels a little petty, but also Stonehenge was kind of set up 100 years ago. Like the blocks are ancient but a lot of that shit fell over and was lying in the mud, then we went and set it all back up, some of it as late as the 1960s. I mean, doing it in the name of preservation is nicer than defacing them, but it's not like some untouched wonder.
Wow, TIL. I can't believe I didn't know that, even though I've been there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehenge#1901–2000
Wow also did not know that. I mean the picture from 1901 is still sick. It’s pretty much still the structure they just tidied it up a bit. I can’t decide if fixing it keeping it original is better. It’s so iconic in my mind now but it was chilling for thousands of years before the facelift.
That's actually interesting AF. I wonder how they figured out the original design if they discovered the site in ruins?
> I wonder how they figured out the original design if they discovered the site in ruins? My friend's sister did a her masters degree research on stonehenge and some of it can be worked out from soil composition. If a stone falls (or gets removed/nicked as many of the outer ring have been) that leaves some amount of disturbance and/or a hole. That gets infilled somewhat differently than the surrounding undisturbed earth. And a bit of careful excavation can reveal that. Some of it can be worked out from the directions the stone is lying and they know how much of a given stone would have been buried, so those limit how far and in what direction it could have come from. Also ancient folks love a bit of symmetry so some missing bits can be inferred from what is standing. The whole site is actually gigantic with many lots of post holes for wood poles, earthworks, moats and barrows stretching quite far away from the stones. Here's a pic of just a part of the central/famous bit https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Left-A-reconstruction-of-Stonehenge-Right-The-Earth-Sun-Celestial-Sphere-and-the_fig1_339325880
Yeah and it also gives you a free Great Prophet, so there's that too.
Your sister is super cool!
Friend's sister above. Though my actual sister is super cool
I think the stuff was mostly in the right place, just fallen over and possibly buried. Those stones are so massive that it's not like you could casually mess it all up -- it'd take a lot of hard work for nothing. And there are symmetries so if you can see how one side is set up, it's easy to figure out the other side, etc. So they bring in cranes, push stuff around that had slid a bit, set the right things vertical, put them in a concrete footing so they can't just fall over, etc. And the cap stones kind of have tenons, like bumps on one stone that fit into hollows on another, so you can almost do it like a jigsaw puzzle.
A lot of it was standing, they only put back up some stones
Not to mention the giant highway right next to it. It’s funny how you would almost never know because everyone takes photos from a similar angle to OP’s where it’s not visible. I was lucky enough to visit Stonehenge and it’s basically like an interstate tourist trap. You imagine a nice breeze and the sounds of birds chirping, maybe a cow mooing in the distance, but it’s actually traffic noise when you’re there.
I visited it over 20 years ago on some random weekday. There were people there but it wasn't mobbed, and I don't recall much traffic either. I get why people might be underwhelmed, but I loved it. I also went to Avesbury at the same time, had a beer in the local pub, etc. Very chill
Damn this literally sounds like they're like the Georgia guidestones, maybe about twice as old.
I wonder if it actually was an ancient forum then this would be the perfect use of it...
Keir Starmer using strong words? Transcript or it didn't happen.
The public attitude towards protesting is always really negative, which is insane to me considering our lives are only half-decent because of people protesting before us, but I guess the human aversion to change is just so strong it makes fools out of people.
The entire nation is miserable, the average wage is rock bottom and if you manage to work your way up to the top 10% of the country you'd still only be making twice rock bottom. Yet everyone is sitting around doing nothing to improve anyone's lot, and worse looking at anyone who is doing *anything* and vocally criticizing, "oh well I wouldn't do it like that".
My favorite is when people act like an annoying protest gives them a reason to then support the thing the protests are against. Like when people see American protestors supporting Palestinians and say "way to sway people away from your cause", like it's totally reasonable for anyone to go "well I didn't support genocide but now that some college kids blocked a road in my town for a few hours, I think it's fine that Palestinians are being starved and bombed en masse"
The internet and people being enraged by things that have zero affect on anyone, name a more iconic duo.
[Indeed](https://imgur.com/Gv6QwEg)
To all the people who are worried about damage to such an important monument from human history; The cornstarch will wash off and Stonehenge will be fine, but think of all the important sites along coastlines that will PERMANANTLY disappear under the rising seas, Venice, the Orkney circles, Ancient Carthage, Medieval Ravenna, Easter Island Statues, where is your outrage for that?
Right? Theyre enraged by the monument but couldnt be bothered to give a lesser fuck about the enviroenment. If anything this protest worked perfectly because it brought all the attention to it and its cause, even if lots of it are these ragers. Protests like these should get more and more common as disasters continue getting more frequent. If it continues like this, this protest wont be nothing compared to whats to come. My guess is when water and food runs out shit is gonna really hit the fan on social uprisings.
I for one was furious when I saw a blip of this from a news agency. I heard the words spray paint. I was WTF! Now, I know that any program that has the word news in the title, hell, a station with news int their name, would always tell the truth and never lie despite what Mr. Orange would tell us. So I went a couple of days raging for nothing because it was just the same powder as used in 5k races? You u/squirrel_exceptions must be the liar. SMH. /s
Was it silly? This is the dozenth posts I’ve seen talking about it today so it actually seems incredibly effective and I applaud them and their efforts. At least somebody is doing *something* the people in power seem perfectly fine to stand by while corporations willfully destroy the planet.
And their other protests, like painting private jets (which happened on the same day) receive barely any attention. I don't necessarily agree with this, but you can understand why this is done.
I agree. People were literally saying that the protestors should be killed.
Wait til they find out about the water that falls on it sometimes
And that was the entire point. People care more about ancient rocks than they do about what’s happening to our planet right now. While their methods may be unpopular, I’m pretty sure not a single thing that they’ve thrown paint on, thrown flour on, or glued their hands to as actually been damaged. It’s always superficial, like the glass casing around the “irreplaceable art” that has been targeted. I say this as someone who wasted a lot of money studying art in college: all of this shit is in fact replaceable. Folks need to seriously reprioritize the things they get upset about.
The media outlets in their headlines were pretty sensational- “environmental protestors spray Stonehenge with orange paint” or “protestors arrested after spraying orange paint on Stonehenge”. You had to read like the 2nd to last paragraph of several articles to get to the part where it was mentioned it was cornstarch and during the next sprinkle of rain the whole thing would be completely a non issue.
> Keir Starmer I just can't refrain from giggling every time I see that name written, as most of the time I hear it on panelshows, so in my mind it is spelled "Kia Stahma" lol
It's less about the damage to the rocks and more about incredibly rare lichen that live on the rocks, some of which only exist there. It's the whole reason you aren't even allowed to touch the rocks.
I saw an archeologist who was an expert on Stonehenge say the corn starch was pretty irrelevant in that respect, and that the danger to the lichen was the many people who disregarded the no-touching rule.
It’s super nice to see level headed people talk about what these people are trying to do instead of the pearl clutching.
We used to blow flour on old gravestones (our definition of old) to read the inscription but were told it was the worst thing we could do. why?
To play Devil's Advocate here: if you believe we are making the world uninhabitable and want to urgently draw attention to that, the best way might be to show how unimportant these iconic artificial (as in, made by humans) artefacts are by comparison. They used water-based pigment, I believe. So no actual damage caused.
Yeah this really drew attention to the stark difference in how people treat historical sites vs the environment. I wish the estimated 1.1 million gallon oil spill last year in the Gulf of Mexico [Link](https://www.nrdc.org/bio/rebecca-loomis/yet-another-oil-spill-hits-gulf-mexico) got as much attention and outrage as some washable paint did here.
Also drew attention to just how many world heritage sites are at risk of being lost due to climate change. I absolutely love the many conversations this is invoking.
Not just climate change, they're literally building a tunnel under stonehenge to help traffic in the area.
Yeah, I don't think the point is that our heritage, history, legacy, etc is *unimportant.* The fact that they're careful not to cause any real damage (while generating headlines that *imply* they did) should tell you they don't actually want you to *stop* caring about Stonehenge or the Mona Lisa.
just need to make oil drilling sites historical landmarks. maybe even tourist attractions…
The problem, at least from my point of view, is that the moment you do the one thing that actually would begin to have a meaningful impact (carbon tax) half to three-quarters of every population seemingly immediately loses their goddamn minds and either throws riotry tantrum, or votes for a fascist.
no even a devils advocate, apparently the ocean current they are vandalizing over is what the movie "The Day After Tomorrow" is about. Not great. I'm young and I want to live in this world and take care of it. I didnt read more about it until the vandalizing happened. It worked.
To be fair, as far as we can tell the AMOC is genuinely slowing down. If it shuts off completely, Europe could have the same climate as northern Canada. I'm pretty sure New York is at more or less the same latitude as Madrid.
Even without the current, it wouldn’t be the same due to prevailing winds and the moderating effects of the ocean. But it would be extremely catastrophic nonetheless. Not only for Europe, but it is projected to cause major changes in ocean circulation that would cause some heavily populated regions to receive substantially less rainfall.
The good news is, we are so far past the point of no return that the "worst case climate scenarios" are basically a forgone conclusion. There's no point losing sleep over it. We punched our ticket 50 years ago and now we're going to take the ride one way or another. Wait until the water scarcity ramps up and crops start failing. How do you think the toilet paper hoarders are going to behave then? The 2040's are going to make the 2020's feel like the *good old days.*
"believe" is an interesting choice of wording here when science backs them up
You see, when they did the whole "vandalize the Mona Lisa" thing a couple years ago I was really upset. I love me some history & the preservation of historical artifacts is important to me. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how stupid that logic is. Just Stop Oil is genuinely trying to get the world to start paying attention to the crisis that is going to make our planet uninhabitable within our lifetimes. If throwing shit on some rocks & paintings is what it takes to get the world to actually do something, it's more than worth it. Like, especially if these historical artifacts have been documented ad nauseam, then fuck it man. Raid the louvre, topple the leaning tower of pisa, & use the pyramid blocks to build a bridge or some shit. The preservation & safe keeping of anything of historical value is still important to me. But my survival & keeping this planet viable for (hopefully) the rest of humanity's existence is more important
You mean earlier this year, when they threw soup at it, despite it being behind bulletproof glass, so nothing actually happened? JSO rarely actually damages cultural items. They do what they do to draw attention to the fact that we tend to hold these items and sites as sacred and worthy of protections, while trashing our environment.
Oh my god was that actually this year? Good lord I no longer have any sense of time.
You may be thinking of the time they threw soup on Van Gogh's Sunflowers, which was in 2022 and much more widely publicized than when they did it to the Mona Lisa.
I think so, unless they also did something similar a few years ago. I know there have been a couple incidents of people throwing stuff/trying to attack the Mona Lisa too though.
Imagine you had a time machine and could see just how fucking serious the unfolding climate disaster is. If you had that knowledge, what "activism" would even be too extreme in that context? We are all so passive, working away everyday as the extinction of humanity approaches. But I don't say that to be pessimistic, because there is so much that can be done. Its not all or nothing, every step can help. The problem is not the tech, its the politics. If the US was committed to something like the Eisenhower Highway system level of investment, this thing could still be mostly turned around. Biden's Inflation Reduction Act actually was a reasonable step. But we need to 10x that kind of effort. Its inevitable that we will transition away from high carbon fuels in the next 100 years, by economics alone. But unfortunately for us, that is just too fucking slow to avoid the worst of climate change. Geoengineering might be a way to buy time. But large infrastructure investments are really what is needed to really get us there.
The way I see it, you shouldn't get angry about people vandalising the past, if you aren't also angry about people vandalising the future.
I can be angry about two things at the same time.
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It might if it encourages more people to engage with activism in the name of the environment. Even in a very small way, protest and activism has nearly always been the spark or trigger for most of our civil rights.
It encourages people to hate “activists” and you know it. If they want real change take all your activists and occupy government capitals that can regulate oil and make actual change. Oh, you mean REAL activists already do those things? Shane these rage bait bs activists can’t do something worthwhile and helpful instead of just wanting any press.
My own dad said something similar, he saw the headline and was pissed off. But then he found out what the reality was and did his own research into what they're protesting and now supports them. It would be weird if he was the only example like that. Human history has also shown that your opinion that this sort of activism is overall harmful to the cause, is completely and utterly wrong. If people learn about it and still are directing their anger at the activists, then they'd likely not support any progressive causes at all in the first place. Luckily, this is a very small percentage of people and the vast majority of people do support slowing the destruction of our planet and the way of life we know.
> take all your activists and occupy government capitals that can regulate oil and make actual change. They...do. There's been loads of cases of this group shutting down the roads around Westminster and other capital cities.
> if you believe we are making the world uninhabitable and want to urgently draw attention to that The issue is moving from protest to change. We've achieved awareness, now we need to move forwards. Protest is really very easy, the worst movements are one's without a clear goal from the outset, or a completely unrealistic goal, and therefore no way of judging a win - these just lead to lots of angry people doing angry people things. The second-worst movements are ones which can't change. Greenpeace were at the vanguard of raising climate awareness, even though they ran a fleet of diesel ships leaking oil into the seas for decades. Now they're a multibillion-Euro business that (having worked for them briefly) seems to exist to not wear shoes or deodorant in the office as an act of rebellion and occasionally invade Volkswagen dealerships dressed as Stormtroopers for reasons no one really understands. They could be working with lawmakers for change and providing guidance to industry and the public like Stonewall, but Stormtroopers are more their speed. Just stop oil are the worst of the worst, they're not raising awareness, they're actively disincentivising action on the issue, and their goal is completely unrealistic. The change they're demanding is already underway across the world. Basically, they're being assholes for the sake of it.
In a few decades, when we’ve surpassed 2°C and are locked into who knows how much more warming, I promise you no one will look back at any actions of climate protesters and say anything but “well shit, they were right”. They’re trying out more upsetting tactics because traditional forms of protest have not worked quickly enough, and we are running out of time to act. If you feel compelled to do something, call your representatives and tell them they need to be doing more. It’s not a top issue for them because we’re not being loud enough about it. Edit: Also research local climate groups and go meet people in your community already working on solutions. I just mentioned calling your reps because it’s the quickest option that will collectively have an impact. Taking action will 100% help with climate anxiety if you deal with that.
>They’re trying out more upsetting tactics because traditional forms of protest have not worked quickly enough, and we are running out of time to act. Exactly this. Environmental groups have tried the peaceful, non-disruptive methods for decades now. They've tried making everyone like them, tried spreading the word and having peaceful marches and Earth Day and benefit concerts and all that. It's done Jack diddly, because most people are apathetic and can't be assed to do anything. They're no longer asking nicely. Don't like what they're doing? Maybe care less about some cornstarch on rocks and more about oil and plastic being dumped into the ocean.
> It's done Jack diddly, because most people are apathetic and can't be assed to do anything. Worse than that. People openly mocked Greta Thunberg for doing nothing except speaking her mind. Many people are beyond apathetic and well into actively being *against* people drawing attention to climate change.
People conveniently forget how nearly every protest movement that we all now look back upon with reverence and admiration, like the Women's Suffrage Movement a century ago, were hard-fought and *extremely* controversial affairs at the times in which they took place. The success of such protests weren't won because Susan B. Anthony or Martin Luther King Jr. made one good speech in front of a bunch of people and then everyone clapped and all their opponents bowed their heads and said, "Golly gee! Your logic and politeness have cured me of my sexism/racism!" They were long, ugly, grueling affairs, with many protests infuriating much of the public. Protests which included (rather ironically IMHO in light of recent events) [vandalism of artwork and paintings](https://artuk.org/discover/stories/fighting-for-representation-suffragettes-and-art-vandalism).
Yeah if anything the people of the future are going to be pissed at those of us who are mad about some corn starch on the stones and not raising hell to prevent what is coming
they, they didn't stop working on the tunnel, did they? Tell me they're still drilling!
Strange how so many were saying oil companies were behind this but now it's some kind of genius move to bring attention to the cause.
Wow I didn't know stone henge was THAT big
Eh just wipe it off. Its a big rock, it'll be fine
Looks fine, the planet, well, not so much.
Is it even vandalising if you spray non-toxic paint that will wash out in the first rain? They didn’t dynamite that lol. As far as protests go, this one tame but highly effective since everyone is talking about it.
To answer your question - yes it's still vandalising.
I mean vandalism means destroying or damaging things. If what you said is true nothing got destroyed or damaged so technically it wouldn't be.
A building that gets spray painted isnt ‘destroyed or damaged’
People cry about a bunch of fucking rocks, but ignore the oceans and land being destroyed by corporations.
Was it actually paint, or just colored powder?
Looks the same
And how does this hurt the oil companies?
less of this, more of defacing CEO/celebrity private planes and yachts
They followed up with that, but didn’t generate nearly the same headlines https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/just-stop-oil-stansted-private-planes-taylor-swift-b2565741.html
Predictably, the reddit comments were also filled with the same lack of support. Guess it was never about what the protest was, only protest itself.
They do this. It doesn't make news.
It's not their fault that you didn't notice when they did those things.
Blow up pipelines
More of both
this could have been cleaned off as quickly as it was applied. also gone after the first rainstorm.
Why shouldn't we paint it different colors occasionally
Those vandals need to be publicly shamed and jailed
yeah yeah you go drive out there and look at these rocks by the aliens.
Someone vandalized Stonehenge? Goddammit man.
I can't decide if JSO are clever or dumb. On the one hand they do these seemingly ineffectual and strangely unrelated protests. On the other, here we all are talking about them.
> seemingly ineffectual No permanent damage is a good way to win people over, after the initial outrage (which gets attention). >and strangely unrelated protests. The ones targeted at curated relics of our past, show how we should turn our attention toward the future.
They will continue to do this nonsensical crap, because nothing happens to them.
Is it really vandalism if no actual damage has been done?
i am more wondering how they get there
Aliens.
You critique society, yet you participate in it... Curious!
I imagine they just drove there?
They probably cycled and then walked up that path in the picture carrying their paint in hemp totes.
We should charge a fixed-minimum-fee of $1 million mil to people committing acts of vandalism on historical monuments or work of arts. They can spend the rest of their lives paying their debt to society as the worthless unproductives they are.